


Calling to join them the wretched and joyful

by SLWalker



Series: Witness me [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Childbirth, Gen, Loss, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 01:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10843329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: Talzin chooses the mate, Talzin makes the coupling; Kycina does her duty and never thinks twice.





	Calling to join them the wretched and joyful

**Author's Note:**

> inthepurplefog said that I should start at the beginning. This was-- a lot more 'at the beginning' than I'd originally intended. I'm also trying to reconcile EU canon with actual canon, all while reminding myself that wow, these people are living, breathing _tragedies_. Oh, and it might serve as a prologue for a longer story. And it's also in the same timeline as [Adding shadows to the walls of the cave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830918), too.

Kycina bears three sons by three fathers, but only the second has two mothers.

"I am barren and want a child," Talzin says, and since this is the way things are, Kycina says that it shall be done.

Her first is already in one of the Nightbrother villages when Talzin makes her essence at home in Kycina's young, strong form, leaving her own suspended in witchcraft and the sanctity of her sisters' devotion.

Talzin chooses the mate, Talzin makes the coupling; Kycina does her duty and never thinks twice.

Their lives are not their own. Her, her son, the male fullblood Zabrak chosen; their lives are not their own.

 

 

  
Talzin says, her voice layered over Kycina's, "This one is male, but he will be strong."

 

 

  
It is Talzin who chants with the other Nightsisters during the birth, it is Talzin who names the infant, it is Talzin who proclaims that he is truly of the Winged Goddess and the Fanged God, and it is Talzin who leaves to reclaim her own form.

It is Kycina's body that bleeds in afterbirth, her milk which comes in, and her emptiness which makes her hold him longer, closer, than she did her first.

It is Talzin who makes plans for this child, her own son; it is Talzin who proclaims he will be a warrior like no other. She divines what she can of the future, and is so taken with her limited vision that she doesn't see that she isn't what makes him what he will become.

It is Kycina who nurses him, who lowers him into ichor, who wraps him up again when it's over to soothe his tears and who strokes the edge of his new midnight black mask while her heart whispers and she reaches.

Both mothers covet him, but not in the same way.

 

 

 

Their lives are not their own, but when Kycina holds Maul, she thinks of Savage and tries to remember his first smile or the weight of him at her breast, and for the first time, she _regrets_.

 

 

 

It is Talzin who looks upon him with pride.

It is Kycina whose face he recognizes as _mother_.

It is Talzin who plans the destiny she hopes to see him reach.

It is Kycina who feels his love for her, fierce and innocent, the first time he smiles up at her.

 

 

 

 _Not you. Not you,_  she thinks, a litany more powerful than any Nightsister chant, as she steals away from their enclave with him wrapped in her arms, clutched to her breast, pressed to the heartbeat he quickened beneath of. _Not you. Never you._

He is only months old, but he has strong hands and holds onto her robes and doesn't cry and she can feel that wild-hearted love, that perfect trust, and she doesn't know that by trying to save him, she will rob him of every freedom she is trying to give him.

Their lives are not their own.

 

 

  
"My own child, this is."

And oh, she loves him. She loves him. She loves him so.

She learns love and heartbreak, and when she hands Maul over to what she so desperately wants to be freedom, salvation, those two feelings bleed together and will remain one thing for her for the rest of her days.

 

 

 

Both mothers love him, if in different ways. Talzin grieves, rages. Kycina grieves, pays for her theft.

It is years later and she bears one more child, this time with a male considered too weak by others to breed with. But he is gentle and has soft eyes and Kycina is broken; she hopes for a daughter she will never have to part from, but gets another son.

She nurses him and names him Feral and marks him and then she lets him go, to his eldest brother, as is her duty. Their lives will not be their own, but wrapped around the love and the heartbreak, she hopes they will have each other.

She lives only a year more.

 

 

  
Her second son will never remember her, but many years later, he will search his brother's face and something deep inside of him will whisper and he will reach. He will never remember her, but many years later, pale human fingers will trace the edge of the midnight black mask she gave him and he will feel wild-hearted love and the closest thing he can get to trust.

He will never remember her, but because of her, the potential to love survives.

His life has never been his own, but this _is._


End file.
